Customer Reviews

University of Oklahoma Sooners Greatest Games

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am a fan of classic sports broadcasts and this DVD set is one of the best out there. I am really amazed at how they chose these games.

I love all the discs but I am going to choose three favorites:

The first disc features one of three Orange Bowls featuring Oklahoma. It involves the Oklahoma Sooners and the Michigan Wolverines from January 1976. It is the NBC broadcast with Jim Simpson (before he left in 1979 for the new ESPN) doing play-by-play and John Brodie with color commentary. The broadcast even includes Jim Simpson mentioning the new NBC logo that debuted that year. This DVD includes Sooner Illustrated's The Best of the Switzer Shows with Barry Switzer. This is a nice touch because it includes clips from both shows that Barry Switzer did in Oklahoma. What amazed me was that they mentioned the "Playback" show. The "Playback" show aired all across the nation for Oklahoma Sooner fans. This has to be one of my favorite DVDs on the box set.

The fourth disc features the Oklahoma Sooners and the Texas Longhorns in the Red River Rivalry. It was a regular season match-up that aired on CBS in 1987. It features Brent Musberger doing play-by-play, Pat Haden with color commentary, and John Dockery reporting from the sidelines. This DVD includes the original pre-game and original post-game. That's not all...a sponsorship bumper is included and features the booming voice of Don Robertson who was the voice of CBS Sports at the time. Also...it includes a few cut-ins with Jim Nantz reading scores from various games in college football. What's interesting about this was that Jim Nantz was updating a football game where Wyoming would have wrapped up a Holiday Bowl berth by Halloween 1987. I have seen this disc three times and it has to be one of my favorites including disc one.

The fifth and final disc features the Oklahoma Sooners and the Nebraska Cornhuskers in what is called "The Game of the Century". It was another CBS broadcast from 1987. It features Brent Musberger doing play-by-play, Pat Haden with color commentary, and John Dockery reporting from the sidelines. It doesn't include the sponsorship bumper but it includes at least one cut-in with Jim Nantz. This is another one of my favorites on the set.

Those are my favorites.

Discs two and three featuring the remainder of their Orange Bowl games that aired on NBC. Disc two features Oklahoma and Penn State at the 1986 Orange Bowl while disc three features Oklahoma and Arkansas at the 1987 Orange Bowl. At the announcing helm during the 1986 and 1987 Orange Bowls were Don Criqui and Bob Trumpy.

All in all...this has to be one of the best sports box sets I have ever come across.

I sure hope they do make another Oklahoma Sooners football DVD box set. This one is the best!!!!!!

Each game dvd has a chapter at the start of each quarter & sometimes if any pregame/postgame coverage.

1976 OB- 134 minutes long. An additional 35 minute video called "Sooner Illustrated's The best of the Switzer Shows is included on the dvd. The single sold dvd of this game has more related to this game than what was provided in the dvd set. There is additional 14 minutes of pregame, 25 minutes of halftime & 28 minute highlight film included in the singly sold dvd. The singly sold dvd does not have the "Best of Switzer Shows" video. Both dvd versions of the game have the best color, picture & sound I've seen of this game.

1986 OB- 142 minutes long. The single sold dvd of this game has a little more related to this game than what was provided in the dvd set. There is an additional 6 minutes of pregame, 6 minutes of halftime analysis & 2 minutes of postgame that is provided in the singly sold dvd. Both dvd versions of the game have the best color, picture & sound I've seen of this game.

1987 OB- 125 minutes long. The dvd is missing 6 minutes of NBC's pregame coverage. Overall this dvd has the best the color, picture & sound I've seen of this game compared to privately recorded versions.

1987 Texas- 154 minutes long. Includes CBS' original pregame & postgame coverage. Overall this dvd has the best the color, picture & sound I've seen of this game compared to privately recorded versions with the exception that the picture is jittery in some areas.

1987 Nebraska- 136 minutes long. Missing the 1 minute or so of the CBS opening where they ask Oklahoma & Nebraska people their thoughts on the rivalry. Footage ends with the sideline reporter talking to Switzer. Missing about 1 minute of footage of the broadcast (the signoff) at the end. Overall this dvd has the best the color, picture & sound I've seen of this game compared to privately recorded versions with the exception that the picture is jittery in some areas.

Wow...what a trip down memory lane. Seeing Bosworth, Holiway, Keith Jackson again brought back the goosebumps. Video quality ranges from above average to excellent....the only two things missing is the '71 game against the Cornhuskers and the 2001 Fed Ex Orange Bowl victory over FSU...packaging is steller, opens up to an aerial shot of what was then Owen's Field, filled to capacity, then continues to fold out into a tryptich with the OU ensigna to the left and the list of games to the right...could have come with a small handbook with game stats, etc...overall a definate must have for any Sooner fan...

This is a magnificent DVD release of 5 of the greatest games in Oklahoma Sooners history. I purchased it because, albeit I am not a Sooners fan, my interest in college football and other sports of the past is generally of an aesthetic variety (which means that my interest regards how it was presented on television). What I mean is: whereas now there are all kinds of graphics and visual clutter on the screen in today's 500-channel HD universe, back at the time these games were played and broadcast, only the pertinent graphics appeared on the screen, and only when needed (score graphic, down and distance, starting lineups, etc.). I am using as an example the fourth disc in this release, that of the Red River Rivalry vs. Texas @ the Cotton Bowl in Dallas in 1987. The part of it that I would like to spotlight is those intervals (5 in total) where Jim Nantz updated other games (and whereas Jim's stock-in-trade now is the NFL and golf, back in 1987 he was the college gridiron studio presenter for CBS). I rented this 4th disc from Netflix to try out the set. At the 36:12 mark of this disc, game announcer Brent Musburger threw it to Jim @ Studio 43 of the CBS Broadcast Center in New York for an update. What's interesting about this release as compared to Warner Bros.' Chicago Bears 12-game NFL release is that, while ordinarily such moments would be excised from the NFL releases, this A&E Sooners release kept that gamebreak, and several more (and, very delightfully, at two of those intervals, I actually saw Jim in the NYC studio going over the scores of other games). To tell you the truth, such is one of the major reasons why I purchased this release: because the gamebreaks on this Sooners release added value that was missing in the Bears release (don't get me wrong: while the Bears NFL release was a great one, as I said in my review of that one, the lack of gamebreaks left something to be desired there, at least in my opinion). Another excellent feature of this game is that the sponsor bumper and full opening were kept as well (the sponsor bumper featured renowned CBS Sports announcer Don Robertson).

The Red River Rivalry game vs. Texas is just one of the games in this release, though. The others consist of three Orange Bowls that Oklahoma was in ('76, '86, and '87, with Michigan, PSU, and Arkansas, respectively, and one more 1987 regular season game, the "Game of the Century II" vs. Nebraska).

There is only one bonus, which I have not seen: it's a vintage coaches' show with Oklahoma coach Barry Switzer; the full title of it was "Sooner Illustrated Presents: The Best of the Switzer Show." This feature is located on the 1976 Orange Bowl disc.

All in all, as I explained earlier, the gamebreaks on the Texas game disc, I strongly believe, are one of the major reasons to purchase this release (that and the sponsor bumper from Don Robertson). You might purchase it for other reasons, but this, I think, is a great rationale for the purchase of this release.

The product was exactly what i was hoping it would be. It was DVDs of 5 of the greatest triumphs of the University of Oklahoma football program during the Barry Switzer era in the 1980's. I would highly recommend it to any Sooners football fan. These were the original TV broadcasts of the game on DVD and will last me a lifetime. I will watch them over and over through the coming years and it will help me to avoid the "off-season withdrawal" I experience between football seasons.

I bought this as a gift for my brother and he has enjoyed it tremendously.

If you are a Boomer Sooner fan than this is a must! These dvd's bring back great memories of some of the best Sooner teams. If you are a Sooners fan and don't have or are not going to buy this item than you are not a real Sooners fan!

This is a very lame set compared to the Notre Dame greatest games set. Of course, Notre Dame has many more great games to choose from, so I guess that is to be expected. How can the 1971 Husker-OU game not be included? Is there no complete broadcast of that? Also, how can Notre Dame's epic upset of #1 Oklahoma in 1957 at Norman which stopped Oklahoma's 47 game win streak not be included, at least in highlight form? ND was the last team to beat Oklahoma in 1953 and then of course beat them 7-0 to end the streak on OU's home field. Maybe Oklahoma felt that games they lost weren't "great games", lol. As a result, this is really kind of a mediocre set.

In sum, this set shows why, especially in comparison to the Notre Dame Greatest Games set, Oklahoma is nowhere near the "greatest program of all time". Notre Dame is ahead of Oklahoma in wins, winning percentage, national titles, Heismans, All Americans, Hall of Famers etc. You can't claim you are the greatest of all time when you are BEHIND Notre Dame in every meaningful category. I will concede however that Oklahoma is the greatest football program ever in the State of Oklahoma.